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Jak

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Is it just me, or since I joined 7 months ago all of the new posters want to buy a live a board, most having no experience of the cut.  I've always enjoyed boating and am proud that we own our own modest craft at last.  Moored on-line on a busy towpath guess what the main topic is from passers by?  Thinking of moving on to a narrowboat, but know very little about it, can you help?  And I do from the limited experience I have and then point them to here.  Does make me wonder if sometime soon the whole system is going to be clogged with people looking for a cheaper life that are put off by the other option "Park Homes".  Maybe I should shut up, but I got here through a love of the inland waterways and a dream to one day own a boat.  Not to find a cheap floating home.

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We moved onto the canals over 25 years ago, to travel the system. In that time we saw people buy boats to live on and not want to travel. I'm so glad that we no longer have to live with the problems this is causing and are now on the bank.

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I think the only realistic solution if you wish to continue using the waterways yourself is to move with the times and adapt. All of our ancestors managed it to get us this far so we must be quite good at it.

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Perhaps quite a few folk just see a narrowboat as a retirement holiday option instead of dragging a caravan. They try it and bingo get hooked and look to sell their home and live aboard. Why not?

Or folk just selling up and doing the live aboard life because it suits their own needs. Why not?

Heck even kids buying because its cheaper than a house. Fully fitted Aintree brand new boats less than £90K..Why not?

By the amount of narrow boats in brokerage I doubt the system will ever reach bursting point.

I can see no negatives at all. The more use, the more income CRT get, so the more they can invest in upkeep (I hope)

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We are looking to live afloat in 2019, boat build slot has been booked as we can not find what suits us on the used market. Its not so much about a cheap life for us as we live cheap on land in that our house is pritty much paid for and we have spare income and can put a little aside. For us it is more about spending time living...... me and my wife are still young 33 and we work 12-14hr days 5 days a week. Been dealt some rubbish hands lately with health and we thought sod it.

Now their is nothing wrong with that and some people love their work but we love to spend time together even doing nothing so if this move allows for that then that is how we will be richer. Living rather than existing to work. Now we will still need to work but part time hopefully and the rest of our week will be spent afloat cruising the cut or on a pontoon looking out to the world. 

Living means more than life with money the simple things of waking up together and having a coffee together.....i start work at 05.30 so cant do that at present or taking the dogs for a walk in the mornings together another simple thing i miss out on altho we go out in the evening, so yes thats why i think people are drawn to life afloat....it can be hard work as you all point out but its work for you not for corporations....

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On 6/14/2017 at 22:47, sueb said:

We moved onto the canals over 25 years ago, to travel the system. In that time we saw people buy boats to live on and not want to travel. I'm so glad that we no longer have to live with the problems this is causing and are now on the bank.

Its not a big problem. 

The use of the canal has changed. 

I regularly pass empty visitor moorings on the GU, there's no problem here.

 

 

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Having just completed a 16 day trip including the Llangollen, I can definitely say there is still plenty of room. Well the endless online moorings on the Shroppie are a bit of a pain, but hardly catastrophic (and most not live-aboard). Mind you, I wouldn't contemplate venturing south of Milton Keynes these days. The cut is double breasted wide beams all the way from there to limehouse and you can't get off your boat.

 

Allegedly.

 

Anyway I love boating, am retired, but I wouldn't want to live full time on the boat as I have too many other hobbies and need too much junk and space.

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36 minutes ago, nicknorman said:

Having just completed a 16 day trip including the Llangollen, I can definitely say there is still plenty of room. Well the endless online moorings on the Shroppie are a bit of a pain, but hardly catastrophic (and most not live-aboard). Mind you, I wouldn't contemplate venturing south of Milton Keynes these days. The cut is double breasted wide beams all the way from there to limehouse and you can't get off your boat.

 

Allegedly.

 

Anyway I love boating, am retired, but I wouldn't want to live full time on the boat as I have too many other hobbies and need too much junk and space.

We moored where we wanted to every night, it may not have been so easy if we had been boating until  6-7 pm at night

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On 2017-6-14 at 22:47, sueb said:

We moved onto the canals over 25 years ago, to travel the system. In that time we saw people buy boats to live on and not want to travel. I'm so glad that we no longer have to live with the problems this is causing and are now on the bank.

...and yet people still boat because they love it so it can't be all bad.

Why is "travelling the system" such a noble pursuit anyway?

Admittedly I did it for the first couple of decades decades but I felt no less of a boater when I took a mooring and settled in one place for the last 7 years I lived aboard.

The vast majority of boaters are not "travelling the system" nor do they have any desire to but that doesn't mean they are less worthy.

 

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1 hour ago, carlt said:

...and yet people still boat because they love it so it can't be all bad.

Why is "travelling the system" such a noble pursuit anyway?

Admittedly I did it for the first couple of decades decades but I felt no less of a boater when I took a mooring and settled in one place for the last 7 years I lived aboard.

The vast majority of boaters are not "travelling the system" nor do they have any desire to but that doesn't mean they are less worthy.

 

Worthy of what? Funny word! People who live a normal life with mains electricity and water coming into their accommodation - which just happens to be floating - are not in my opinion boaters. To be a boater you have to use your boat for the purpose it was built which is navigating, at least occasionally. We had a couple on the adjacent pontoon in our marina. They bought a new boat and lived on it for 3 years. They NEVER left the marina or even moved it within the marina, and freely admitted they didn't know how to operate the boat / were scared to try. They have just sold the boat and gone back to dry land. In no way could I consider them to be "boaters" in the slightest bit. Lovely people, just as "worthy" as anyone else, but absolutely not boaters.

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22 minutes ago, nicknorman said:

Worthy of what?

Precisely!

 

23 minutes ago, nicknorman said:

.... are not in my opinion boaters...

Which is exactly that...just your opinion.

Others might be of the opinion that anybody who has an unseaworthy steel tub in a narrow ditch with no intention of ever taking to the high seas is not a "boater"...

...Just an opinion.

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Just now, Alan de Enfield said:

And a pretty reasonable one.

In your opinion.

Personally I never regarded myself as a "boater" in over 30 years of owning a canal boat and didn't give 2 hoots about whether other folk saw me as one or not.

Nor did I judge whether other folk were "boaters" or not nor bother if they were using their boats enough to grant them any label.

Am I a boater?...

I just don't care.

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3 hours ago, nicknorman said:

Having just completed a 16 day trip including the Llangollen, I can definitely say there is still plenty of room. Well the endless online moorings on the Shroppie are a bit of a pain, but hardly catastrophic (and most not live-aboard). Mind you, I wouldn't contemplate venturing south of Milton Keynes these days. The cut is double breasted wide beams all the way from there to limehouse and you can't get off your boat.

 

Allegedly.

 

Anyway I love boating, am retired, but I wouldn't want to live full time on the boat as I have too many other hobbies and need too much junk and space.

You'll be ok down as far as Marsworth Nick, we've just been there and there was an abundance of moorings and that's with the steam rally taking place down there on Sunday; yes we did pass a few wide beams, some on the move and some moored up, we also passed 2 sets of narrow boats double moored!! (shock / horror) but as someone else has said in this thread there were no drama / dismay.:P Other than we've lost yet another chimney cap!!:angry:

Having a lovely little trip (my first real cruise since being discharged from the hospital) and can say I am throughly enjoying it. Brilliant weather, meeting some lovely folks along the towpath & at the locks.  Life is good, I love living on a boat, but it's especially good when it moves (for me):wub:

 

 

 

(Yes, I assumed your post was tounge in cheek)

 

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2 hours ago, nicknorman said:

Worthy of what? Funny word! People who live a normal life with mains electricity and water coming into their accommodation - which just happens to be floating - are not in my opinion boaters. To be a boater you have to use your boat for the purpose it was built which is navigating, at least occasionally. We had a couple on the adjacent pontoon in our marina. They bought a new boat and lived on it for 3 years. They NEVER left the marina or even moved it within the marina, and freely admitted they didn't know how to operate the boat / were scared to try. They have just sold the boat and gone back to dry land. In no way could I consider them to be "boaters" in the slightest bit. Lovely people, just as "worthy" as anyone else, but absolutely not boaters.

Like in this TV program http://www.channel4.com/programmes/my-floating-home/on-demand/62243-001 some of them 3 stories high and so close together you could tap on the windows with a fishing pole

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  • 1 month later...
On 2017-6-14 at 22:09, Jak said:

 I got here through a love of the inland waterways and a dream to one day own a boat.  Not to find a cheap floating home.

Why cant we enjoy both? I recently bought my live aboard because its cheaper than a house but also because I love the heritage of the canals as I live on esa and dla I can't afford a house and if I got one through the government it would most likely be in a bad neighbourhood or worse so I moved onto a boat, which the government will pay my mooring fees and licence for me i'd rather have that than live in a drug den

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On ‎14‎/‎06‎/‎2017 at 22:09, Jak said:

Is it just me, or since I joined 7 months ago all of the new posters want to buy a live a board, most having no experience of the cut.  I've always enjoyed boating and am proud that we own our own modest craft at last.  Moored on-line on a busy towpath guess what the main topic is from passers by?  Thinking of moving on to a narrowboat, but know very little about it, can you help?  And I do from the limited experience I have and then point them to here.  Does make me wonder if sometime soon the whole system is going to be clogged with people looking for a cheaper life that are put off by the other option "Park Homes".  Maybe I should shut up, but I got here through a love of the inland waterways and a dream to one day own a boat.  Not to find a cheap floating home.

Don't worry it aint gonna happen. We moved onboard to live in 89 because we wanted to live the life, we knew nowt about it but it happens that we love it way more than land dwelling. The facts you will find as we have over the years that 99 percent move aboard and last less than ten years most last less than 3 years and of those I knew who lived aboard in 89 I am now in touch with one who is still aboard. In 89 and early nineties we met very very few who lived aboard but there is still masses of room if you avoid the sheeite holes were masses seem to conglomerate. Just as one of a thousand for instances here on the oxford you can go a huge distance in many parts between moored boats. Its usualy only hovel areas such as London that are rammed.

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On ‎16‎/‎06‎/‎2017 at 09:07, Matt&Jo said:

We are looking to live afloat in 2019, boat build slot has been booked as we can not find what suits us on the used market. Its not so much about a cheap life for us as we live cheap on land in that our house is pritty much paid for and we have spare income and can put a little aside. For us it is more about spending time living...... me and my wife are still young 33 and we work 12-14hr days 5 days a week. Been dealt some rubbish hands lately with health and we thought sod it.

Now their is nothing wrong with that and some people love their work but we love to spend time together even doing nothing so if this move allows for that then that is how we will be richer. Living rather than existing to work. Now we will still need to work but part time hopefully and the rest of our week will be spent afloat cruising the cut or on a pontoon looking out to the world. 

Living means more than life with money the simple things of waking up together and having a coffee together.....i start work at 05.30 so cant do that at present or taking the dogs for a walk in the mornings together another simple thing i miss out on altho we go out in the evening, so yes thats why i think people are drawn to life afloat....it can be hard work as you all point out but its work for you not for corporations....

A good post. You will love it. We too found working for anyone else was just no life so we have worked together for most of our time together, not always we have had a few years doing different jobs but mostly we have had joint businesses so together all the time and it has certainly worked for us. We often could have earned more money as underlings in someone elses business but no way jose for most of our time anyway.

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2 hours ago, mrsmelly said:

Don't worry it aint gonna happen. We moved onboard to live in 89 because we wanted to live the life, we knew nowt about it but it happens that we love it way more than land dwelling. The facts you will find as we have over the years that 99 percent move aboard and last less than ten years most last less than 3 years and of those I knew who lived aboard in 89 I am now in touch with one who is still aboard. In 89 and early nineties we met very very few who lived aboard but there is still masses of room if you avoid the sheeite holes were masses seem to conglomerate. Just as one of a thousand for instances here on the oxford you can go a huge distance in many parts between moored boats. Its usualy only hovel areas such as London that are rammed.

Or L**** H*****d - but in the latter everyone is really, really nice... (nudge, nudge, wry smile)

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